Thread: Selecting anti-virus / anti-malware protection for your computer

Last year I used Kaspersky (paid). I've only gotten a virus on a PC once and it was my own stupid fault. I realized what I did immediately even though there were no outward signs... So I generally never worried about it despite doing some... shady things with my PCs over the years.

But I decided what the hell. It can't HURT. So I went with webroot a couple years ago and their incessant nagging to renew totally turned me off of them. I went with Kaspersky which was pretty good. This year I went with Bitdefender though. I like it. It's pretty quiet. It doesn't do any popups if you don't want them. The firewall is app based (though I wish sometimes for a bit more flexibility there). It does web, mail, file scanning, etc. Has a password manager, it's own browser for financial websites you want to add to it... Seems like a pretty good package.

Ugh, there's too many options...


The reviews for Windows Defender are terrible. It's not even making the "list" in most cases.

Has anybody ever used this review site? AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Real World Protection Test Overview

Originally Posted by jmw_man

Ugh, there's too many options...


The reviews for Windows Defender are terrible. It's not even making the "list" in most cases.

Has anybody ever used this review site? AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Real World Protection Test Overview

Never heard of that review site before. Its really easy to skew metrics and make any product look better than another. It comes down to this. There is no perfect all in one solution for antivirus and malware. You have to choose to your budget and your risk tolerance to an infection and make a decisions based on that. You go from high risk tolerance which leads to free alternatives...as your risk tolerance goes down you get into paid products.....if you have low risk tolerance you can get into rather expensive software solutions or look at redundancies. We push Avast for student use as its one of the better paid options out there that isn't crazy expensive. Its not perfect. No software is. We don't use Microsoft Security Essentials on staff system (only personal), on staff we use the licensed enterprise version of Microsoft security essentials called Forefront. We have used it for years and my area supports just under 3k devices and it has blocked/stopped about 95% of infections. The ones that still get through are typically in email format with executable embedded. We block/filter those with the exchange server. The few that are left are malicious popups from comprised ad servers on common websites (even CNN has been compromised). For those we re-image the machine. You are asking for a simple, free if available way to keep your mom's system secure. It doesn't exist, if it did most of us IT folks would be out of job. The biggest push we have done to stop viruses and malware is educating our user base. That education has kept pretty much all users from clicking the damn button when they get the popup saying "you've been infected, click here to clean it"

I've been using ESET for years now. Nothing less than happy. It doesn't nag or brag.....at all.

For paid I have been using Norton and Malwarebytes. The two give me great protection, no interfering when I am trying to do stuff by trying to scan or anything. And no impact whatsoever on my system performance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been following the tests at AV Comparatives for years; they are a respected resource and seem to me to be very impartial in their testing. Over the last couple of years Bitdefender and Kaspersky have seemed to more often top the ratings.

I use Bitdefender free and am very satisfied. I'm sure their paid version would provide even better protection. I'm also a fan of Malwarebytes Pro. Run both and use a little common sense and you should be golden.

War's recommendation to use OpenDNS is also spot on. Set it up and forget it. Lots of "parental" control options if you need them. And it's free.

So after setting up OpenDNS you wouldn't need any virus scanners or anything else? Sounds interesting. I requested more information from them, waiting for them to contact me.

Yea, on the AV Comparatives, I wondered if they might have been more reputable than anywhere else that I found ratings, simply because of .org, but that also doesn't always mean anything either, but you never know. I just remember from school 10 years ago it was suggested people should stay away from .com's when conducting research.

Originally Posted by jmw_man

So after setting up OpenDNS you wouldn't need any virus scanners or anything else? Sounds interesting. I requested more information from them, waiting for them to contact me.

Yea, on the AV Comparatives, I wondered if they might have been more reputable than anywhere else that I found ratings, simply because of .org, but that also doesn't always mean anything either, but you never know. I just remember from school 10 years ago it was suggested people should stay away from .com's when conducting research.

No, use OpenDNS in addition to an antivirus. OpenDNS can protect against phishing sites and can be used to block internet access to certain types of sites (e.g., porn sites), but it is NOT an antivirus program and is not designed to protect against viruses. It's additional (free) security, but you will still need a good AV.

If anyone wants the paid bitdefender for 3 pcs and 2 years Frys gave me 3 promo codes to get it for $38.11 each. Just pm me for a promo code if you do and have a Frys nearby.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk